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Senate passes resolution to staff ports of entry

The Arizona State Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed SCR 1014, a resolution that calls for Congress to properly staff Arizona’s ports of entry. The vote was 28-1, and it now goes to the House for approval.

The Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales, currently one of the busiest ports in theUnited States, is expanding to twenty vehicle lanes. Once these lanes are operational, the port has the potential to be an economic bonanza for the state and the nation, but only if it has proper staffing with Customs officers and Border Patrol agents.

“Right now trucks bringing in produce to the country from Mexico wait for hours on end. The added lanes will help, but we must also have men and women in place to check the loads and get the trucks through the checkpoint,” says Sen. Gail Griffin, sponsor of the measure.

“The two countries have a $397 billion trade relationship. The majority of that trade is done through trucking, with thousands of trucks rolling through Douglas,Yuma, and Nogales every day. We need to keep those trucks in drive, or our economy will stall,” says Sen. Griffin.

In addition to the new lanes in Nogales,Douglasis also looking to expand its port of entry in 2015. In order to alleviate the excessive waits and the loss of millions of dollars these lines create, SCR 1014 tells Washington to do something for our growing need.

The support for the increase of Border Patrol personnel called for in SCR 1014 is part of the Restore Our Border (ROB) Security Plan authored by the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association.